Wednesday, June 13, 2007

without reading the other post(s), a couple of thoughts: that while you can have each without the other, an awareness of having health, even provisionally, can certainly contribute to happiness. I recently finished a short story about a woman who'd been trapped in a mineshaft for several days with the line "I am alive", and I know that that line came directly from my own experience. I whinge a lot on this blog, but to me that's about the search for a perfect life - I guess I'm a glass-half-full kind of person - and it in no way reduces the soaring feeling I have, on the rare occasions I let myself believe I've got away with it, that I am unbelievably blessed.

I suppose it's like the cliche of having an attitude of gratitute. and reading that Jeanne is awaiting an MRI result reminded me of that.

health can mean vigor and fitness, or it can mean simply surviving. for a while there I simply survived, with the ongoing surgical reconstruction aftermath. now, in contrast, I am regaining vigor - and that, certainly, makes me happy.

and for my little boy, I'll trade off all the wealth in the world against his health and happiness.

The Existential Imagination (Picador compilation, Satre, Kafka, Moravia - read all except the boring bits and excerpts from books I may want to read in full one day.)

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line(Essays)

J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus
(this book was written in the 1800s by the author of Heart of Darkness, on which Apocalypse Now was partly based. I'm sorry about the title, but I also don't believe you can change history.

William Gibson,Count Zero

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale (vol 1 of his biography)

Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes (should really be reading this one aloud so A. knows how lucky he is!

Salman Rushdie, Fury
Martin Amis, NightTrain

Keith Laumer, The Galaxy Builder (sci-fi slosh)

The Picador Book of Contemporary New Zealand Fiction (ed. Fergus Barrowman)(the short stories only, not the extracts which bug me)

Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (second time.)

Andrew McGahan, The White Earth (much overrated, imho)

Cynthia Ozick, The Puttermesser Papers

The Travels of Marco Polo

Will Self, How the Dead Live

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada

Christopher Green, Toddler Taming

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Janette Turner Hospital, Due Preparations for the Plague

R. Evans, The Pyjama Girl

Books read while recovering from breast cancer

DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

My Year of Meat, Ruth Ozeki

The Vivisector, Patrick White

William Gibson, Idoru

Martin Flanagan, The sound of one hand clapping
Lance Armstrong, It’s not about the bike